pSX Emulator

Console emulators bring the features of video game console such as PlayStation, Xbox, Sega or Nintendo to your PC. This way, you can enjoy games that normally don't run on other systems but the ones they are developed for. While their use can be illegal, emulators are not meant to encourage piracy.

Put in the right hands, emulators can successfully help the programmers to perform foreign games translations, bug fixes found in original games or updates of rosters in older games.

ROM hackers can also apply new technology to the system, adding capabilities such as HD resolutions, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, audio interpolation and even multiplayer modules and save states.

Video game console manufacturers have sold hundreds of millions of units to date, with Sony topping the chart with their first two PlayStation console models. PlayStation 2 takes first place with more the 150 million units while its predecessor sold more than 100 million units.

Released back in 1994, the first model of the PlayStation series has been emulated for the first time in 1999, was called Bleem! and had a two-year lifespan. Since then, a vast array of emulators have entered the scene and some of them are still under development – PCSX-Reloaded for instance. The big guys in the category are two older projects that haven't released a newer version since 2008 – pSX and ePSXe.

All that pSX need in order to properly run, as most of the emulators, is a BIOS ROM file. Once that is loaded, you can load a PlayStation CD image or insert a physical CD into your optical drive. Its contents are instantly read and you can either play the game or choose to use it alongside developing tools for debugging, programming or hacking purposes.

The Configuration window of the application allows you to point to the paths for state saves, memory cards, CD images, screenshots or BIOS files. The Graphics tab section provides access to options such as bilinear interpolation, frame skipping, full screen, windowed or display adjustments.

You can also set up your controller the way you see fit, choose the CD-ROM driver and the subcode reading method, customize miscellaneous settings regarding volume, gamma, brightness or contrast as well as the audio device together with its frequency and latency.

pSX has proven that video game console emulation can reach new heights in both performance and stability and that's why this PlayStation emulator tops the ranks of its categories. It gets the job done with no fuss at all and has done that in flying colors since its arrival on the scene.